1. Resolve most recent IRS defect... preferably before boss comes by and asks about the status.

2. Finish my PDFA (this is the document detailing evidence why IBM should promote us. It is crazy hard to write, especially when you're low on evidence anyway, but still feel like you should petition.)

3. Write 10,000 words. Not too hard, right?

4. HAPPY HOUR! Woo!

*sigh* Not too much to do, but a lot that I don't want to do. And how did I get SO far behind on NaNo?? I was doing well for a while! Still, all I need are one or two really good days and I can catch back up. Says I.

Speaking of novels, I've started reading/listening to The Golden Compass on my way to work. Man, I love it so much I hate it a little! It's so good, and so vaguely steampunkish (ZEPPELINS!) and everything is so well written and the characters are so complex... augh. I just hate encountering something so similar to what I'm trying to write, yet SO much better that I feel dwarfed even trying to add my own interpretation to the genre. :(
I only have 3 discs left so I'm about 2/3 of the way through. I'm already sad that it's going to end soon. I wish I'd read this book as a kid. I don't know if I would have appreciated it as much, but it's definitely a book I would have loved.
In a lot of ways, I can't wait til I have kids so that I can read them The Golden Compass and the Chronicles of Narnia, and Harry Potter... They're fun to read on my own, but I imagine they'll be even better to share.

Okay, enough daydreaming and back to work, I suppose...

Stolen from lacedsarcasm

Step 1: Put your mp3 player or whatever music player you have on random.
Step 2: Post a line/stanza from the first 25 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Bold or cross out the songs when someone guesses correctly.

Have fun, and don't cheat!

( Songs below the cut )

The weird thing is that I don't even listen to all the songs I have in my iTunes library, so I honestly don't think I'd be able to name all the songs I've listed. Oh well, good luck friends!

So life goes on in much the same way that it did yesterday. I did end up going to my cousin's for dinner, which was nice until right after dinner when it suddenly got cut short. Her husband's parents who were visiting, found out their cousin died over the phone. So suddenly his mom is crying and my cousin doesn't know what to do and everyone is upset so I made a quick exit. Have mentioned that I am comforting!fail? But I've only met Mitesh's parents a few times, and it just seemed best to leave.

Meanwhile, I finally figured out a way to make Matt feel at least a little better. The play he's in has it's final shows this weekend. I know he wants his friends to go, but so far no one really made any concrete plans to show up. So I emailed a bunch of our friends over FB and offered to make everyone lunch on Sunday and then carpool over to Matt's show (which is close to our house) that way a bunch of people would go to the final show. So far 7 people have said they're going, so that'll make Matt happy. Especially because he has to go straight from the show to his grandma's wake, which I know will be hard for him.

Work's been stupid busy the last two days so I haven't gotten much writing done. There goes my buffer... But Matt's gone again tonight, at a play rehearsal for a show their doing at an elementary school, so hopefully I can use that time to get ahead again. I'm trying to figure out where there plot is going from here, and I have a couple of ideas, including a few that operachk19 suggested. It's nice to know that someone's reading my story. :)

I need fingerless mittens gloves for typing at work... it's so damn cold in my office!

Remember when I said that I was way behind on my word count, and that I'd basically have to double my 7000 word novel today in order to get back on track? And how I was whinging that I wanted to write, but couldn't just sit down and do it?

( This is the part where I'm a BAMF... )

Okay, so after running myself to a standstill by writing based on a premise, I realized I really needed to stop and think about what was really running the show here. My character had just met the villain and yet I had no idea what the interaction between them should be like, cause there was nothing at stake yet. So I did some big hard thinking on my commute yesterday and today (an hour commute does give you ample time for big hard thinking) and right before pulling into work today, I got it!

And once I had one little bit figured out, it was like everything fell into place! I knew how my FMC would meet her romantic counterpart/partner in crime! New plot threads sprung up like daisies! Characters that I'd barely sketched out finally had purpose! And best of all, I have a semblance of a final conflict - I at least know how to get in and out, though admittedly the conflict details aren't there yet. But I can't even express how excited I am! It's like new life was breathed into my novel, and it's no longer all disjointed and contrived. My MC actually has a purpose!

But the downside... I'm already behind on word count, by about 1000 words. And making these plot changes basically means I have to rewrite my first 7K because I decided to have her enter the AU Chicago a completely different way, and meet the Prince earlier than she is now. Completely necessary changes, but I hate to go back and edit now. The only silver lining is that I can cannibalize my original beginning quite a bit, and anything I cut out I'm still going to leave in my doc, just in white font or something. So my word count shouldn't go down at least.

The other downside is that I don't know how much time I have to work on it today. I have to do my Project Assessment today, plus I have some defects to work on. So I'm going to try and be super productive and fit it all in, and hopefully I won't fall back on my word count even more. At least Matt is out of town this weekend, so if I need to, I can pull a bit of an all nighter to boost my words...

Oooh, also I put this cool steampunky theme on my firefox so now I can be forced to happily think of my novel whenever I'm browsing the web!

Dear self,

You and I both know that you have no time to write tonight, or indeed at any other point today except for right now. And I know - really, I do! - that you don't know what happens next. That your villain's plan is something that he hasn't yet shared with you. And you want to just skip past it and write about cool characters, like Ben and Spek. But if you skip this, then your character can't react to it later and you'll be in a worse pile of shit than you are now.
So please stop procrastinating by looking up college friends' profiles on Facebook and writing polite letters to yourself, and actually START WRITING.

No love,
Me

.
.
.
( Cut for people who just don't care. )

And in brief:

7024 / 50000 words ~ 14% done!

[ETA] Made my goal and wrote another 2K today, now at 7024 words. Introduced Prince Jacob, and made my first pass at describing the steampunk version of Chicago. Probably failed utterly, but oh well..

So things are more or less looking up. My sickness has eased into just a cough that keeps me up at night, but no more fever and my appetite has come back! (I'm being reminded of this by my very grumbly tummy)

Matt's birthday was yesterday, as we got to make up a little for the last of anything on our 6-month. I made him enchiladas, which are his favorite dish of mine, and we watched Howl's Moving Castle because he said he wanted to. I got him a really cute birthday Stitch plushie (he pointed out that he wanted it at DisneyWorld and it took me aaaages to track down, but worth it!) and a sweater, and some Superman boxers, and a PC game - Demigod. Of all these, he was most excited by the game. Of course. Plus we had cheesecake birthday cake, cause regular cake is for squares, obvi.
We were supposed to go out with his family tonight to Texas de Brazil for dinner, but he got a call from his mother this morning that his grandma (who was recently diagnosed with cancer) isn't doing well at all. So instead they're making a family visit to see her in the hospital. I just hope she's doing better. Matt was so upset when he found out about the cancer, I can't even imagine how hard it's going to be on him when she passes away... I know it has to happen at some point, but I can at least wish that it's not the same week as his birthday.

In slightly better news, I got an email from the director of the Spoon River play. I decided not to try out because it was too much of a time commitment, and with Matt just getting out of his play, I wanted us to have some time to spend together. Plus there's a few productions in the spring that I was to try out for (like "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" and even better... RENT!). Anyway, she emailed and actually asked me to take a part without having to audition. I guess she didn't have enough people audition and since she knows me from improv, knew that I could handle a role. She explained that it would be minimal rehearsal time since the play is mostly monologues and we can rehearse separately whenever is best for us. So I went ahead and accepted, since I can mitigate the time commitment better. So yay - play?

Is 11:15 too early to eat lunch? Even if you didn't eat breakfast...??

Worst. November 1. Ever.

It should have been awesome. It was Matt and I's 6-month anniversary and we were going to go hiking and I was going to write my 1,667 words for NaNo while he was out in the morning.

BUT NO. Life hates me.

Instead I was very very very sick. So I've spent the last two days running a fever and coughing so hard it sometimes makes me throw up. If I'm not incredibly hot and sweating, then I am shivering under 5 blankets. Plus I have a headache and my eyes hurt.

Guhhh.

I stayed home from work today because I got up, took a steaming hot shower (still had goosebumps and was freezing) and then went right back to bed. I've spent probably 60% of today sleeping. And the other 40% writing. And I'm still not even at 1667 words. I'm at 1500 something. But I can't stand being on the computer any more today, so I'm giving up for now and hoping to catch up.

What an awful start to NaNoWriMo.

There are some heavy issues floating around on my friends list today, enough for me to spend my morning reading up on rape culture, Jungian philsophy, and Daniel Quinn's proposed societal reform. I'm hardly the person to comment on any of this though. Which is weird. Actually.

( And as I thought that, I started commenting on it. )

...no, I'm not freaking out at all. I'm sure I'll figure out my villain's plot and what my MC has to do with it before Nov 1... no problem....

*a hem*

Anyway, this weekend was terribly productive (in all non-novelling ways). My cousin and her husband came over for dinner on Saturday - I made hummus and pesto from scratch and they came out deliciously! Now I need to buy more pita for all my leftover hummus... Oh, I also made bellinis cause we've had a bottle of champagne in fridge for almost a month now. I guess we could have opened it for our 6-month next weekend, but who really likes the taste of plain champagne anyway?

I also massively cleaned/organized our garage yesterday while Matt was at rehearsal. We now have space to fit a car in or even use our foosball table! Plus it was nice to narrow down exactly how many boxes we still need to unpack (Matt: 2, Me: 5... ouch). We also wanted it clean for the halloween party next weekend, so that's one thing off the to-do list. Now we just have to decorate and fix up our costumes...

In other news... I talked with my personnel manager on Tuesday since our end-of-the-year review type thing is coming up. We (thankfully) talked about my project and how disappointing it's been so far, and how I'm not doing the kind of work I want to. And then I told her that my old team lead wants me to get on another project (EADIS) and that they have developer positions open (which she knew) and that it's only 4 miles from my house (seriously I could bike there). And it finally clicked I guess that this would be a good project for me (or at least a better one) so she asked for my resume and she's going to work her managerial magic to get me switch over there. Cross your fingers for me guys, this would be awesome if it panned out.

Oh, and yesterday Matt and I watched more Firefly (he'd never seen it, shame shame! (just like darthsemicolon)) and I've determined that disc 3 is the best possible disc. It has Out of Gas, Ariel, War Stories, and Trash. Soooo good. Up next is The Message and Heart of Gold, which I am meh about.

TODAY - I'm back on the NaNoWriMo wagon, after deciding a week or two ago that plot was stupid, I was making no progress, and I wasn't going to think about it for a while. Well, it still seems stupid, but oh well, I think I need to get in some pre-writing work in order to finish this happily. So I'm posting a few resources that I'm using.

MEANWHILE - roll call! I know a few of you are doing NaNo this year, who else? If we're not already writing buddies on the site, drop me you name in a comment and I'll add you. Or, add me! I'm orange_avocado as always.

FINALLY - If you hate NaNoWriMo and all things related to it, and never want to hear me talk about it again - Let Me Know! I'll create a subfilter so that you don't have to listen to me whine about writing.

( And now, on with the plotting - Muahahaha! )

Hm.. must look for a good writing icon...

Ready to be proud of me? I worked out last night! I did a 25-min run and then some ST for a total of ~530 cal burned. Of course, it was not without a few hitches. For one, I made the bad mistake of deciding to run outside, since I'd just been telling bienegold how there's a nice, paved, marked trail a block away from my house. Plus the weather isn't scary cold or raining like it was last week, so I thought I'd take advantage. Except that by the time I could start, at 7:30, it was already dark. Well, despite that my area of town is basically nicknamed Little Mexico (though our townhouse community has always seemed pretty safe), I decided to go out anyway, since usually the trail has people on it and I thought it would be well lit.

It was NEITHER. Dark. And empty. Except for three guys hanging out on the trail talking as I ran by into a tree-lined, very dark area. Sooo.. I decided this was probably not the safest place to run, and dodged into a well-lit neighborhood. Then I continued running on some well-trafficked streets. Yay for molestation-aversion!

Also the ST exercises I got from Fitness magazine left much to be desired. Maybe cause I was using too small of weights, but also, I think, cause they sucked.

So, DILEMMA time - I don't want to break my (one day) streak, but I found out there's a Knox homecoming happy hour this Wednesday that I really want to go to. I don't think I'll be able to work out after, and I'm busy on Tuesday and Thursday as well... OH NOES, when do I work out??

Oh, and on a non-fitness subject, this shop has the CUTEST. HATS. EVER. Most especially this octopus one which has sadly been sold already. And they're reasonably priced! If someone were looking for a fairly inexpensive XMas gift to get me, they would probably be well served to go here... Just saying.

Which means if you're not on twitter, you're missing out. Luckily fine people like darthsemicolon, dramedy, and bienegold get all me all the time.

Anyway.... I hate unpacking, I now have a bright red closet and a stain on the carpet that Matt was delightfully forgiving about, and speaking of carpet accidents, we are *never* dog sitting for my cousin again.
Oh, and my paid account ran out... now I'm debating if I want to renew it just to have my icons back when in reality I probably don't use more than 6 anyway...

Did you want actually content? Or are you just happy that I'm updating? :D



PS: Sooper Sekrit message for operachik19: I watched the video*! What was your comment?

So last night was officially Matt's and my* first night in our new place! It was... interesting. Of course every new place has it's pros and cons, and this one had more pros than cons to begin with. For one, it was the only townhouse we could rent for a good price and through a leasing office (as opposed to a realtor). So it was a great alternative to a 2-bedroom apartment and just about the same price. Plus they cut us a few deals (our leasing agent was phenomenal!) Have I posted pics of the floor plan yet?

( Pictures/Floorplan under cut - )

Anyway, those are all pictures from the website of the model, though it's remarkably similar to our unit. I'll upload some pics of our actual unit after we paint and move in some furniture.

Last night we slept on an air mattress because we wanted to spend our first night there, and it was awful! I think my cats poked a hole in it the last time we used it, cause it slowly deflated over the course of an hour or so and we were left sleeping on the floor. Then this morning we found out that the washing machine on the third level leaks into the living room. Matt just called them to fix it so hopefully that'll get done before tomorrow when we plan to move everything in. Other than that, the house seems fine - one or two minor things that we have to get used to, but we'll work it out.

Tonight we're spending at our own places, which is sad cause we've gotten used to sleeping together, but we both really need to finish packing and we can't be in two places at once... together. Or something. But I'll get to sleep with the kitties tonight which is always a treat (when they don't try to strangle me during the night).

OH! That reminds me, I had this crazy dream last night that I went to paragraphs's house in TX and tried to sleep in her guest room cause our air mattress was deflating. Except I'd never met her before so we both got really confused. And she had a lake in her front yard that you had to cross by boat. Or you could walk up the driveway, lol. It was weird.

Meanwhile on the health front... I'm still waiting to hear back on my second blood test to determine if I'm hyperthyroid. I have a colposcopy next Friday as a follow-up to the abnormal pap smear. And, since when it rains it pours... last weekend I got an infection in my gums near my top-left wisdom tooth. It was SO painful! I couldn't open my mouth more than 2 centimeters, so all I could eat was soup, and I was constantly on pain meds. I saw a dentist on Monday who have me some muscle relaxers for my jaw and meds to kill the infection, and that's been working. Then I had to see *another* dentist because the first one wasn't in my HMO. Then they had to refer me to an oral surgeon so I could get my wisdom teeth removed. And I have to go to them for a consultation next week, and then (maybe???) I finally get to have them extracted - hopefully sometime before the end of the month, if I'm lucky. At least it doesn't hurt anyway. Fucking dental plans.

And on that positive note - I'm going back to work. :P


*Okay grammar nazis, I know I'm saying this wrong - what's it supposed to be??

Except that I'm pretty sure if I actually admitted how worried I am about nearly everything in my life right now, I'd be in a closet somewhere crying.

...just like in the car this morning...

My entry would have looked like this:

So I just got a call from my doctor's office.  I had a routine yearly check last week, with the whole girly exams and bloodwork done.  When I had this exam done last year I was told my result were 'abnormal' meaning I might have HPV.  I talked w/ my doctor about this and she said that since I'm young, have a good immune system, etc, it'll probably have cleared up on it's own.  Except it didn't.  My results are still abnormal, which means I have to go get a colposcopy done and find out more.  And then, I found out my blood work returned high risk for hyperthyroidism .  She asked if I'd ever been diagnosed for this before, which I haven't, and if I've had problems regulating my weight or have been excessively tired, which I haven't (actually haven't changed my weight in 3 months!).  So instead of sending me to a specialist, I'm going back on Thursday to have the test repeated, in case it was a false reading.
Add to all of this the fact that for once I actually have work to do, and my computer is flipping out!  Saying I'm missing files, my internet won't connect, tests are running wrong... I don't often have real work to do at my job, but I'd like to be able to get it done when I do.  Instead I'm fighting with my machine and freaking out over these test results.


But in the space of those 10 minutes I talked to Matt, who calmed me down and offered to take the day off and come home with me if I needed someone around.  And while unfortunately, I have too much to do and can't take the time off, it was a sweet offer and made me feel better.  And while I was talking to him, I got a phone call from our future landlord, saying that another townhouse had opened up in a much better location, and we could switch!  Which is something we've been hoping for since we signed the lease, so that was good news.  And finally, restarting my computer solved all its issues, so now I can go back to be productive (so I can go back to being unproductive).

Dear Monday,
Please keep getting better.
Thanks,
Me

Things I have been doing:

• Pirating! Yarrr! (check out Matt and I)
• Playing Evony like crazy...  If you like empire building games, and have free time, you'll like this.
• Reviewing restaurants on Yelp! http://yramirez.yelp.com
• Reading How I Met Your Mother fanfic, cause I can't wait for season 5 to start....
• Packing!  Matt and I move in 2 weeks!!

Things I have not been doing:

• Updating LJ... :(
• Any work.  Or even looking for a new job with work I like better.
• Lusting after Neil Patrick Harris.  Nope.  Definitely not.

Real update later, but I figured this would get things going.

A. Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper at their LiveJournal.

B. Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper.

C. Don't change your wallpaper before doing this. The point is to see what you had on!



I'm using this desktop cause Matt made it for me!  He was using my computer while I was away getting new glasses, and when I turned on the 'puter for work the next day, this greeted me!  I think it's adorable, and I love that he surprised me with it, which is why I've kept it on for the last month.  I think he made it in Word, which is pretty hilarious, but it's the thought that counts, yeah? Only embarrassing part is displaying it at work, but so far no one has made any negative comments, and *I* think it's cute at least.  :)

In addition to everything else, it ended up being a GREAT running weekend!

On Friday, I had the afternoon off work and since it was gorgeously sunny out, I wanted to try my hand at a longer run. Since 3.5mi was my max, I challenged myself to run 5 miles out on the W&OD trail (a cool paved trail with mile markers). It was soooo hard, but worth it. I can't even describe how accomplished I felt at the end! The only downside to this plan is that I was running a 5K the next day, and worried a little about overexerting myself... ended up being a valid concern. By the end, I seriously strained my right foot because of it's tendency to supinate (turn inwards) while running.

Fun Facts:
- I ran the first 3.1 miles (5K) in 31:30 and figured this would probably be my time for the 5K
- Because of some poor planning, I finished the 5 still a mile away from where I started
- The worst part of the run was the heat - ended up being in the 80s and there was NO shade!
- Around mile 4.5 I stopped having control of my bladder. I've heard of this happening in marathons, but seriously? I had to literally concentrate on not peeing while I was running. Luckily I was dehydrated as well...
- The water fountain I passed around mile 5.5 is my new best friend ever.
- Total calories burned: ~800
- Total time: 50 min for the run, 1:10 at the end

Saturday was my 5K at the Mercer Festival. It was the first "official" 5K I've run, with timing chips and everything! I woke up with my foot still pretty sore and my knee sore too, which made me kinda regret Friday's run. I had iced my foot and taken ibuprofen, but some soreness lingered. It ended up not really hurting so much once I started running, though. There were about 100 people there, between the 5K and 1 mile fun run. Course was pretty flat, on the roads, with an annoying uphill at the end. A lot of people passed me right at the start, making me feel lame, but I kept on at my tortoise's pace and even passed a couple of people by the end. I think I finished somewhere around 1/2 to 2/3 of the way through the crowd. I put on some speed during the last 50 yds or so, but would not have been able to keep going if it weren't for 2 other people who synched up with right at the end, who declared we would all finish together, and kept me going at a good pace. Final time was 27:15, which was waaayyy better than I was expecting!

Meanwhile, feeling totally on track and psyched for my 10K next month!